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Memory Alpha:Policies and guidelines
Memory Alpha is a collaborative project and its founders and contributors have a common goal: :The goal of Memory Alpha is to create a free, collaborative ''Star Trek reference source -- the largest fan encyclopedia on the Web in both scope and depth. We want it to be a useful, reliable resource for all fans.'' The Memory Alpha has some policies and guidelines that are considered important, or even essential, by the project's founders and participants. These help us to work towards our goal. It is important to note that at least some of these policies are still evolving, as Memory Alpha grows and develops. General Policies * Avoid bias. Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, which means that articles should represent differing views on a subject fairly and sympathetically. * Don't infringe copyrights. Memory Alpha is a free encyclopedia licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons License. Submitting work without the copyright holder's permission threatens our objective to build a truly free encyclopedia that anyone can redistribute, and could lead to legal liability for the project. See Memory Alpha copyrights for more information. * Memory Alpha is an encyclopedia. The site should primarily be used for developing the encyclopedia. In particular, discussions on talk pages should be directed at improving articles. See Memory Alpha:What Memory Alpha is not. * Respect other contributors. Memory Alpha contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. By treating others with respect we are able to cooperate effectively in building an encyclopedia. For some guidelines, see Etiquette. * Follow conventions. By following these conventions we are able to produce a more consistent and usable encyclopedia: ** Editing policy (How to edit articles) ** Naming conventions (How to title articles) ** Disambiguation (How to resolve title conflicts) ** Image use policy (Handling uploads) ** Deletion policy (When and how to delete) For policies on using some restricted features, see Administrators. See also most common Memory Alpha faux pas for some useful information for newcomers. How are These Policies Enforced? You are a Memory Alpha editor. Memory Alpha lacks an editor-in-chief or a central, top-down mechanism whereby the day-to-day progress on the encyclopedia is monitored and approved. Instead, active participants monitor recent changes and make copyedits and corrections to the content and format problems they see. So the participants are both writers and editors. In extreme and unusual cases, Dan Carlson and Harry Doddema, the co-administrators and project founders, will step in to ban a user who has proven to be unusually disruptive. How Policy has been Formulated Memory Alpha policy has been largely copied from Wikipedia, one of the original free WikiWikis of the Web. Because Memory Alpha has the same basic structure and purpose as Wikipedia, we are adopting many of its policies for the short term. As time goes on, it is likely that we will expand and modify those policies to best fit the developing Memory Alpha community. Wikipedia's policy is formulated for the most part by habit and consensus. Hence, the statements on this page and pages adjoining it are intended for the most part to be descriptive of existing Wikipedia community norms that have developed over time. Some Wikipedia users are currently working on a decision making process, hoping that it will be used to agree on a set of consistently enforced policies for the project, as well as on the process used for their interpretation. Specific Guidelines to Consider In addition to the generally accepted policies listed above, the following guidelines have been suggested by various participants: General Guidelines * Contribute what you know or are willing to learn about (and create stubs responsibly) * Be bold in updating pages * Make omissions explicit * Build the web Behavior Guidelines * Sign your posts on talk pages * Avoid profanity * No personal attacks (and move personal debates to email) * Log in before making drastic changes to existing articles * No offensive usernames * Bans and blocks * Don't protect pages unless necessary * Please do not bite the newcomers * Don't create articles about yourself Content Guidelines * Explain jargon * Integrate changes (instead of just appending your thoughts at the end of an article) * Deal appropriately with patent nonsense * Establish context (instead of presuming too much knowledge) * Define and describe * Cite your sources (and use proper references) * Warn readers about spoilers * Make articles useful for readers (and consider the audience in writing) * Check your facts * Avoid blanket statements * Avoid and fix stub articles * Use Boilerplate text. * Summarize discussion (after a while) * Make only links relevant to the context * Describe external links * Don't use external links where we'll want Memory Alpha links * Avoid peacock terms * Avoid weasel terms * Avoid self-references Style Guidelines * Manual of Style * Pay attention to spelling * Don't include copies of primary sources * Avoid making your articles orphans * Always fill summary field * Follow highlighting conventions * Use subheads sparingly * Use short sentences and lists * Balance parts of a page * Don't use line breaks * Do not use subpages * Consider writing articles in news style ---- * Wikipedia: Policies and guidelines (Dec. 12, 2003, 19:56 UTC). In Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines